


By Rote

by nqdonne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: hpfamilyfuncest, First Time, Incest, M/M, Masturbation, Pastiche, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:20:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nqdonne/pseuds/nqdonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because your child kills one animal, it doesn't mean they're abnormal. An AU Dexter pastiche.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Rote

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizardspots](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lizardspots).



> Written for the 2007 hpfamilyfuncest comm, since deleted from InsaneJournal. The James/Remus is implied. James being with rentboys also mentioned.
> 
> Warnings: Other than incest? Patchy psychological analysis, overuse of italics, intellislash tactics and the word 'wrong.' And it's AU obviously, as James/Harry tends to be (no D/H spoilers or references). 
> 
> This is a complete AU, in which Voldemort attacked when Harry was 4, instead of 18 months, and Lily died but James did not. It's a Dexter pastiche, following Dexter psychological canon through season two-ish (in terms of his relationship with Harry, and pre-that awful Lila storyline). This is, by far, the dirtiest/most wrong thing I ever wrote, and that's saying something.
> 
> There is one throwaway line about Harry being asexual that I don't like very much anymore; I've left it there so I don't fall down the dark hole of editing, but note that I don't feel the reference is accurate or fair to asexuals and I mean no offense.

Early signs of anti-social personality disorder, more commonly known as the precursor personality type of the psychopath (though the two are not mutually exclusive), are cruelty to animals and pyromania. James knew this from Auror training, where they did a module on the Muggle social sciences as a tool for understanding the dark roots of a Death Eater.

So when James found their ageing family owl lain, bent and broken, in a shallow grave in the backyard, a wayward trail of feathers betraying its location, he began to look at Harry with a sense of worry. When he'd pulled the scrawny eight-year-old aside and asked him first _if_ (a small nod) and then _why_ he had hurt Jasper, Harry simply shrugged and mumbled something about him being "loud and annoying." Unsettled though he was by his son's nonchalance, James didn't want to jump to any conclusions. Just because your child kills one animal, it doesn't mean they're abnormal. So he watched him.

Harry was a subdued child; this wasn't news to James. Everyone said it was because of what had happened _that night_. The night Lily had died, and Voldemort had been destroyed, seemingly forever (James knew better, however).

James blamed himself. It had been his idea to choose Peter as their new Secret Keeper after Sirius died in a battle in Hogsmeade. He'd barely been in the role 48 hours before Voldemort was on their door step. But James hadn't been there. He'd been with Remus.

And Voldemort had taken his time with Lily and Harry. Whilst James was engaged in a marathon grief fucking session, Voldemort had spent hours venting three years of frustration in not finding them on Lily, the house's secluded location swallowing her screams. James imagined – and later saw via Pensieve - what it must have been like - her agony as Voldemort used a series of Slashing Spells and then healed her, Harry crying in his cot, confused and upset. 

Harry's screams had died by the time James got home; he'd found him peering out from behind the bars of his cot, the Sticking Spell Voldemort had used to keep him confined whilst he tortured Lily still in place. He was _so quiet_ and his once-bright eyes now dull, probably from the hours he'd spent staring at Lily's lifeless body on the floor in front of him. It had taken the Auror Department's most skilled memory expert to extract from Harry's fragile, four-year-old mind what had happened. That's how they knew most of the details – how Lily had thrown herself in front of Harry, tried to save him, and how Harry had vanquished Voldemort, sending his Avada Kedavra rebounding back onto himself. 

The wizarding world rejoiced in the days the followed; James buried his wife and tried to console his shell-shocked son.

Now, four years later, James was seeing the results of that terrible night, looking at the son who had suffered because he wasn't there. James grew more worried still, though not entirely convinced, when Harry nicked his wand and set light to some papers – it was hardly pyromania, was it? But when he caught Harry trying to shove their pet Kneazle - _Lily's_ pet Kneazle – into the washing machine, his worst fears were confirmed. He was raising a killer.

A _potential_ killer, he tried to reassure himself, but he _knew_. Harry had the taste for it, and if Dumbledore was right, if he got his way, some day in the future Harry would kill – Voldemort, yes, but if he _liked it_... 

James would see to it that his son didn't become a murderer. A monster.

//////////////////////

James pulled Harry aside a few nights later.

"Harry, I need you to understand something."

"What Dad?" Harry answered him calmly, his gaze even, unruffled, as always.

"Well, that you can't just hurt something because you feel like it."

"What do you mean?"

James let out a long-suffering sigh. "It's wrong to hurt someone or something who doesn't deserve it. Like Jasper. Or Matilda."

"But Jasper was being loud... and Matilda _smelled,_ " reasoned Harry in a way that only an eight-year-old could. Like it was simple logic.

"Harry," James said wearily, "those aren't good reasons to hurt them. To kill Jasper. It isn't... normal to do those things."

"Normal? Is... is that bad?" He asked uncertainly – not because he was _upset_ , James realised, but because he was confused. He didn't understand, but he also didn't seem particularly upset about it.

"It's fine to be different, Harry, but there are still certain ways of behaving. Of acting towards other people. I-" James struggled with the specifics of anti-social personalities, and how to put this best to an eight-year-old. "I know it's hard for you to understand, Harry. But the way you feel... not everyone feels that way. Most people don't. They don't want to hurt other people."

"I can't help it." Said matter-of-factly, without a hint of emotion or the dramatics one would expect of a normal child.

"I know, Harry. But... you're going to have to try and control it. And pretend that you're like everyone else. Or else bad things could happen." 

_Like Azkaban_ , James thought. _Or, best case scenario, St. Mungo's._

Harry looked as if he still didn't quite get it, but James thought he was getting there.

"Harry, did you _like_ hurting Jasper and Matilda? Did you enjoy it?"

Harry shrugged. "Yeah."

As James had thought. He let out a heavy sigh and reached under the frontispiece of his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose.

"You can't ever let anyone know that, son. You know the work I do, Harry? My job?"

"You're an Auror."

"Yes. I arrest people who hurt other people."

"But I'm your son," Harry stated.

"I know, Harry. I wouldn't hurt you. But the people I work with – they wouldn't understand. They would take you away from me."

"No!"

James let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding – finally, a reaction from him!

"Do you understand, then, Harry? How important this is?" 

"I guess..." Harry answered uncertainly.

God, he hated scaring him like this – he was so young. But he had to understand _now_ before he progressed beyond just hurting animals. He'd be sending him to Hogwarts in a few years, and he couldn't have him going about the grounds, killing cats, and maybe hurting another student...

"Harry!" he barked firmly. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes!"

"Good. You'll have to learn how to act normal, for your own protection."

"How?" Harry's lip trembled, but James knew he wouldn't cry. He hadn't since that night.

Looking at his son, the person he loved more than anyone on earth, an emotional void and potential murderer, his heart ached. Steeling himself against the sense of disgust at what he knew he had to do, he placed a reassuring hand on Harry's back. 

"I'll teach you."

//////////////////////

The remaining three years before Harry went off to Hogwarts were spent teaching Harry the social conventions of tact, friendliness and _not_ lashing out at something or _someone_ merely because you felt like it. James took him hunting every month or so, using the exercise to control his desire to hurt. He watched the way Harry concentrated s they moved through the brush, saw the anticipation as he stalked his prey and then the absolute _calm_ once the animal was dead. Killing for Harry was a _release_. James spent many evenings after their hunting trips vomiting in the upstairs toilet.

By his eleventh birthday, James felt Harry was ready for school, though he didn't want to let him go. Loathe as he was to do it, he alerted Dumbledore to Harry's... condition and asked him to keep an eye on him. Harry was smart and had already exhibited the kind of magical prowess you see from people five years older, so who knew what spells he might find and use against someone who crossed him in a moment of weakness. Their lessons had been clear about not harming other people, but God help anyone who tried to bully Harry.

The first letters home were encouraging. He had friends – first a boy named Ron Weasley – James, of course, knew his parents from The Order - and then a Muggleborn girl called Hermione. They were all in Gryffindor, and James couldn't help but be proud to see his son follow in his and Lily's footsteps. Not to mention relieved that he hadn't been Sorted into Slytherin. Killers were Sorted into Slytherin. James tried not to dwell on the exceptions, like Peter.

Harry even ended up on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, as a First Year, no less – Lucius Malfoy's son had provoked Harry, apparently, and he'd inadvertently ended up showing off flying skills James certainly had never known he'd had. Now his son was the youngest Seeker in a century. And he hadn't split the young Malfoy's skull open while he was at it, James thought with relief.

But then Harry came home for the summer, and James could tell straight away something was different. He had a light in his eyes James wasn't used to seeing. It was like... a sense of being. At first James had thought it had something to do with Harry's run-in with Voldemort – he'd played the hero and won Gryffindor the House Cup, but it soon became clear that that wasn't just it.

One day after dinner, Harry came out with it, his eyes taking on that rare glint of pleasure as he looked ahead at an undefined point on the wall and played with his mashed potatoes with his fork.

"I killed him, Dad."

"What?" James looked up from his plate, hands stilling mid-cut into his piece of steak.

"Quirrel," Harry clarified, then seemed to waffle. "Or Voldemort. I don't know. But Quirrel... I _burned him_. It was like, I touched him, and he just wasted away." 

Harry seemed fascinated as he recalled this, but then he darted a nervous look at James.

"What is it, Harry?"

He looked James in the eye, seemingly drawing up his courage. "I liked it."

James swallowed hard before answering. "Okay," he said slowly. Harry was looking at him, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. James looked at his eleven-year-old son sadly, but managed to say with resolve. "We're going to have to teach you to choose the right people then."

"Choose?"

"You enjoyed killing Quirrel, yes?" Harry gave a barely perceptible nod. "And do you still think about hurting people who annoy you?"

"Malfoy, mostly," Harry answered, nodding more firmly this time. "But I don't do anything about it!"

"I know, Harry – I'm very proud of you. We'll work around this. I was hoping... well, regardless. Some people deserve to die, Harry. People like me sometimes have to do something about it."

"Aurors?"

James nodded. "We tend not to enjoy it, but sometimes it feels good knowing that someone who didn't deserve to live, who hurt other people and would hurt more people, is dead." He eyed Harry carefully. "If you're careful, Harry, you could make sure bad people don't hurt anybody. Like Voldemort."

"I thought I did kill him, when he killed mum, but then he was at school..."

"I know, Harry. And I'm sorry to tell you this – you're so young" - Harry made a face – "but you're going to have to be the one to kill him. Not now, but some day. I can teach you. Help you practise."

"Practise? Killing people? You'll let me...?"

"In time, yes. There are a lot of bad people in the world, Harry."

He left it at that. James couldn't believe he was doing this. But his son needed him. 

//////////////////////

They spent the next few years perfecting the art of killing – though all in theory, and only animals in practise. It never stopped feeling _wrong_ teaching a twelve, thirteen, fourteen-year-old how to be a murderer, but James had long since accepted that his son was not normal. And he seemed to soak up new information like a sponge.

Building on the morals and rules of "normal" society James had spent the last few years teaching him so he could fit in, he taught him the flip side – the darkest urges of human nature. The vigilante justice _normal_ people thought on fleetingly, whether they liked to admit it or not, but never acted on. He showed Harry the difference between a petty thug and a serial killer, chronicled the most depraved Death Eaters he encountered and taught Harry the names and visual signifiers of any he might come into contact with. They translated his skills of stalking animals in the forest to stalking people, watching them, assembling the facts.

"You have to be sure, Harry," James instructed. "You mustn't take death lightly. Once done, the act is irreversible, so you must be certain that they deserve it. Watch them, study them, know the facts." 

James started calling it the Harry Code, a code of conduct that couldn't apply to anyone else. Because other people wouldn't freely kill even those who deserved it. But Harry? He was turning into quite the weapon. Dumbledore, who kept tabs on them more than James would've liked, was pleased. They would defeat Voldemort, no question. Harry was hungry for the kill.

//////////////////////

"I saw mum."

Of all the things Harry could have said after what happened in the Tournament, that was the last thing James expected.

"What?"

"When Voldemort and I were duelling," he explained calmly. "She came out of his wand, with the others. And I... I think I remember. That night."

"Oh, Harry..." James expected tears, but Harry looked at him, straight-faced.

"He enjoys it, too."

"Who enjoys what?" James was confused.

"Voldemort." Still so damn calm. "He enjoys killing people. He killed Cedric like it was nothing." Now Harry looked troubled, or as troubled as he ever got.

"Harry, you're not like him. Cedric didn't deserve to die. He doesn't follow the Code."

"Does it matter?"

"Yes! Of course it matters!" James looked imploringly at him. "Harry, you're my son, and my son isn't a killer, not like Voldemort. You can be a good person and still do bad things."

Harry didn't look like he was so sure.

//////////////////////

Harry's letters that year were singular in that they sounded _angry_. Like really angry, not just a smidgen more emotional than Harry's standard calm, as James was used to. James could, at least, understand, but he was surprised nonetheless. Umbridge was wreaking havoc on Hogwarts and at the point where she drove Dumbledore from Hogwarts and stopped letting Harry come home for hunting trips, Harry's tone in his letters grew dark. James feared Harry would forget The Code and do something rash, perhaps hurt the prissy little toad.

James also detected a bit of angst of a different sort, tipped off by when Harry questioned how "normal" boys should act around girls. Not exactly ready for that conversation (killing he could do, but not the sex talk), James ignored it as best he could. Harry didn't mention it again, and James was relieved.

Meanwhile, with Harry out of the house and the tenth anniversary of Lily's death come and gone, James found himself seeking sexual release in a way he hadn't previously needed. All those years teaching Harry, watching after him constantly, he had needed little more than a quick wank here and there. Before he knew it, he'd been six, seven, eight years celibate and had no problem with it, really. He certainly couldn't dream of having sex with any woman other than Lily at first, and Remus, well... they hadn't spoke in years. They fucked once or twice right after, but they both felt too guilty to continue... whatever it was they had, even friendship.

Things had been pretty exclusive to James and his right hand (with an occasional guest appearance from the fingers of his left up his arse) from the time Harry was four until he went to Hogwarts. When the lessons with Harry shifted to the darker stuff, it was as if the flood gates opened. James was horny all the time, and wanking three, four times a day did nothing to sate his libido. He was hardly old, afterall – scarcely 33 by Harry's third year at Hogwarts – and his body craved another's touch. That's when he started visiting the brothels.

It was always boys, and on the rare occasion he fancied a woman, he went to Muggle clubs and picked someone up, his only real stipulation being they weren't a redhead. He couldn't deal with a redhead, even ten years on. Nearly three years gone now, and James found himself fucking a boy or being fucked fortnightly at the least, sometimes several times a week when cases at the Auror office were particularly stressful. He'd even had one assignment that involved going undercover in the shadier parts of Knockturn Alley, and for that month James hadn't gone a day without fucking. It was glorious, forgetting temporarily about Harry's condition, about Lily's murder. When he was fucking, it was just about his cock, and making someone else scream.

But he didn't want to think about Harry having sex. How was he supposed to explain how normal people got on with it, if James was hardly normal himself? 

After that letter came, James fucked a boy whom he belatedly realised looked like Harry. He'd never come so hard.

//////////////////////

Two rather monumental things happened at the end of that year. James nearly died and Harry got his first taste of casting the Cruiciatus Curse.

God damn Voldemort, he sent Harry that vision of James held captive at the Ministry, and of course Harry'd gone rushing off to save him. James suspected he was the only person Harry felt any genuine emotion for, though maybe he saw that because he wanted to. 

James had barely escaped the Department of Mysteries with his life – and all over that _stupid_ Prophecy! - Bellatrix Lestrange's curse had only just missed him. But the near-miss had set Harry off, and he'd gone after her, stupid boy, and from what he later told James, had cast a short but very satisfying Crucio at her. Harry _smiled_ when he recounted it to James.

He was ready for his first kill. But how long could James put it off?

//////////////////////

It was Easter holidays of Harry's sixth year and Harry was home for the weekend, a routine they'd had, with Dumbledore's permission, for the past few years so Harry could get in a bit of hunting. They had just returned from a rather labourious jaunt in the woods, where Harry had successfully tracked and killed a deer, then skinned and gutted it. James suspected this was the last time killing an animal would be sufficient to sate Harry's appetite for killing; he was already planning their first... proper hunt for the summer. He had a shortlist of Death Eaters he'd been keeping tabs on in the Auror division, the most vile sort, perfect for Harry to take care of.

They arrived home, changed out of their hunting gear and settled in the living room for a light snack and tea break. Harry never ate much after a kill.

"Dad?" Harry asked between taking small bites of a cucumber sandwich.

"Hmmm," James answered, mouth full.

"What do you do with girls? You know, with sex. How should you act?"

James realised his mouth was hanging open, unchewed food on his tongue and stuck in his teeth. He closed it and swallowed hastily before speaking.

"Um, I don't know Harry. I thought I'd explained that?"

"Well, yes, the mechanics. But how should I act. You know, to pretend I'm normal."

It had never crossed James' mind that he wouldn't _know_. Sure, his son had little empathy and enjoyed torturing animals in this spare time, but wasn't the theory sex = feels good universal? It seemed not.

"Err, well, Harry I supposed you should act like you're enjoying it."

"Like smiling and laughing, like in Quidditch?"

"Not exactly - you smile and laugh too much and she'll think you're crazy. Or insulting her."

"Oh."

"Yes. Um, Harry? Have you, um... masturbated?"

Harry shrugged. "Seamus talks about it all the time, but I tried and it was just... weird."

"It didn't feel good?"

"Yeah, but I just didn't really care for it."

If it were anyone but Harry, James wouldn't have believed him. Great. His son was asexual.

"Well, um, I don't know how to describe it then. Usually you just do it and it feels good and that's how you act..."

"Can't you show me?"

"Show you?"

Harry shrugged. "Yeah."

"I really couldn't, Harry."

"Why not?" he challenged, mouth set in his now-familiar scowl.

"Because it's just not right. I'm your father. It's not... normal."

"You know I'm not normal."

"Yes, but that's killing people who deserve it, Harry. This is... incest."

"I just want to watch."

"I could be arrested."

"But you're an Auror."

"Aurors can be arrested, too." 

James tried to remain firm – along with a curiosity about sex, Harry had grown into the other teenager stereotype of being argumentative and stubborn. Why, of all the ways in which he could be normal, did Harry have to go with those three? Seeing that James wasn't going to budge with this approach, Harry changed his tactic.

"Please Dad - I. It's just... Ginny wants to, and I don't know how to act, and I know she'll find out if I do it wrong. She'll tell everyone!"

"Harry, you don't have to do anything with Ginny that you don't want to."

"But you've said - everyone has sex. I can't not do it forever."

"But do you _want_ to do it?"

"Not really." A too-long pause sat between them. "It'll be just like porn, Dad, only... real. No big deal," Harry tried to persuade him.

"I have porn - you can watch my porn instead!" James offered a little too enthusiastically. Now _that_ was something he never expected to say to his child.

"It's not the same. I've heard the boys talk about how it's not really like that. I need to see the real thing. Just once, Dad. Please."

There was something about the way he said it, and the pleading look in his eyes that melted James' resolve. He reasoned it was because he so rarely saw emotion from his son, or resolve for anything but sick, twisted pleasure. Which, come to think of it, rather characterised this situation well. This was what he signed up for when he decided to teach Harry the ways of normal, though. But it was only a bit of masturbation, right? He'd close his eyes, wouldn't have to think about Harry sitting there, watching.

"Sit over there, Harry," James instructed, and Harry immediately scurried over to the armchair sat across from the sofa. Banishing the tea things to the kitchen with a wave of his wand, James Summoned a tumbler and the Firewhisky from the nearby liquor cabinet and poured himself a double. He was going to need it. Before he forgot, he Accioed his lube from upstairs and set it on the couch beside him.

He drunk the whisky down quickly and hoped it would kick in by the time he had his prick in hand. "When did you try this, Harry?" he asked, stalling.

"Few years ago."

"You really didn't like it?"

"It was nothing special."

"Well..." James was at a loss. He didn't understand his son at all. So he chose to ignore him for the time being, closing his eyes and settling back into the couch. First he thought of Lily, and how he used to masturbate to thoughts of her in school. God, he'd been a horny teenager - he'd had to toss off three or four times a day just to keep things from... springing up at inopportune times. Then he thought of Remus, the first man he'd ever been with, though hardly the last. That was it, as far as regular – normal – sex partners went, however. James hadn't had a relationship – or anything beyond regular back alley fucking, at least – in the twelve years since Lily's death, mostly because he knew he couldn't bring a stranger into their family - no one else would understand Harry. They'd only see a monster. 

He thought about the last man he'd been with, more a boy, really. He'd been in his late teens or early twenties, James couldn't tell which, tall and blond, set off with light musculature and a nice, firm arse. James had paid for the whole night and had him several times, and had even enjoyed a nice fucking himself - not all the boys for hire were skilled enough to reciprocate, but this one had a nice, big cock and James just couldn't resist. The memory of the stranger's - _the boy's_ \- heavy prick spearing him open as James bent over the dirty double wide bed, calling out the filthiest things his mind could conjure... well, it served to get him sufficiently hard, despite the audience. 

He eased his cock out of the slit in the pajama bottoms he'd put on, absently licking his right palm and bringing the hand down to grasp the aching flesh. Teasing the head of his prick from his foreskin, James worked his cock to its full hardness, adding a liberal amount of lube to the mix, which produced a squelching noise that ordinarily wouldn't have bothered James except it reminded him of the fact that Harry was _watching_ and _listening_. He couldn't help it; he moaned. In his mind, it was a disturbed moan, expressing his frustration with the whole situation, but to Harry it must have sounded like something else, because James heard him gasp, and when he opened his eyes and focussed on his son, he saw his face flushed red and a hand hovering over his groin area. 

"Harry are you okay?" James asked instinctively, flinching when he realised how ridiculous the question was. Harry just kind of gaped at him a moment, and then swallowed heavily. James watched his Adam's apple as it bobbed up and down sharply. God he wanted to lick his throat. Wait, No, no he didn't.

"I..." Harry started. "Is that what it's like?" He pointed vaguely at James' crotch. "So big and red?"

"Yours isn't... you haven't?" James left the ends of his questions unsaid, hoping Harry would get the gist. He must have. He shook his head no, eyes still wide. 

"Can I...?" Harry dropped off, getting up from his armchair and moving over to the couch beside James. Before James could give the emphatic NO his head was shouting at him to say, Harry was laying tentative fingers on his prick, gathering the moisture from the lubricant under his fingertips and running them along James' length. 

James' breath seized up in his chest. He hadn't been touched like this in months – softly, tentatively -, and to have it be _Harry_ doing it... It was wrong. _wrongwrongwrong_ went the litany in his head, but then Harry closed his fingers around James' cock and there was his fist, experimenting with a light tug, then a harder one. He pulled on James' prick in this alternating rhythm until the only sounds were the slick _squelch, squelch_ and James' anguished panting, to which his brain was chanting _no, no, no_ and _wrong, wrong, wrong_ alternately in unison. Cracking his eyes open just a tad, he saw Harry peering at him in concentration, looking at his face whilst his hand methodically wanked him. He nearly came.

Then it stopped and James thanked all the deities he knew that Harry had the sense to stop just then, before James came, covering his _son's hand_ in spunk. God, creaming himself over his son. Maybe he was the one fucked up in the head.

Harry sat back, studying James as he tried to steady his breathing and will his erection down. What had he been thinking? Wanking and coming in any context with Harry here was a bad idea. He was a pervert! _He_ was one of the bad people he taught Harry to hunt. He shouldn't have -

"You looked happy," came a quiet, matter-of-fact response from Harry.

"What?" James gasped, turning and looking at his son, bewildered.

"I've never seen you look like that."

"Well, you're not really supposed to, Harry. What I did was wrong; I'm sorry."

"No! Please don't say that. I..." Harry scrunched up his face, clearly searching for the right words. That had been a hard lesson, teaching him tact. He let out a slow, heavy breath of air, then his expression fell flat again. "There's more, right?"

"More?"

"Coming and fucking and sucking."

"Harry!"

"I hear the boys talk, dad. I read the books you gave me. I..." he stalled again. "I don't want to do that with Ginny, I don't think." 

"You don't have to."

"I want to do it with you."

"What! Harry, NO!"

"Why not, Dad?"

"Because of exactly that! I'm your father!" Harry stared at him blankly. "It's not normal."

Harry's voice took on a hard edge. "Sometimes I don't see what the big deal is with being normal. Normal people are arseholes."

"Yes, but they're the ones with the power to make your life miserable if you don't conform. You have to pretend, Harry," James pleaded, but Harry remained firm.

"Then why don't we? I'm not like them, but I pretend to be every day. Why can't we do what we want and pretend to them that we didn't?"

"It doesn't work like that."

Harry frowned, eyes narrowed at James. Then he did the last thing James expected: he stood up, unzipped his jeans and pulled them plus his boxer shorts down to mid-thigh and plopped back down. Spitting roughly into his hand as James watched, shocked and mesmerised, _feeling_ the shift as the Firewhisky finally took hold, Harry started pulling roughly on his limp prick, grunting softly in his efforts, then whimpering as he began to respond. James watched as a cock all too similar to his own poked out from its foreskin, the pink head straining in Harry's tightly wound fist.

Harry grabbed for James' discarded lube and squirted a bit into his palm, then returned to his prick at double the speed, grunting desperately, trying to get hard. When his prick stood at half-mast after a minute of frantic jerking, his hand fell away and he made a high whinging sound in the back of his throat.

"Dad, I - it's not _working_ , please...."

James would later blame the Firewhisky for how he instinctively reached forward and took his son's dick in hand, some part of his brain urging him to help, to teach him. Harry gasped and tossed his head back, exposing that pale throat and jutting Adam's apple. James refrained from leaning forward and licking it, but only just.

Harry's cock fared better under James' ministrations, but even with his skill, James could not get Harry fully hard. Instinct more than any logical part of his brain found him on his knees a moment later, suckling the head of Harry's cock in his mouth. Harry made no noise outside a tiny sound in the back of his throat, barely audible, and James' wouldn't have been able to sense the shift in pleasure were it not for Harry's thighs suddenly tensing. God, he was always so _quiet_ and James' mind screamed for the challenge of getting him to scream, to show some display of emotion outside the occasional blip, and for something that didn't involve ritualistic torture.

James worked Harry's cock down his throat, swirling his tongue over the underside whilst swallowing, feeling the thighs tense further as he gave his son's cock a thorough massage. James had never thought he was particularly good at this, though Remus had always said he was perfectly adept (yes, using that word). He'd practised on a rentboy or two but never deep throating – this he was trying out based merely on an experience being on the receiving end of a rentboy a few years before. Harry, given his age and the Potter proclivity towards average cock size, was small enough that James could manage.

There it was! The tiniest of moans. James' heart – and his cock – swelled up at the sound. Here was the challenge, to make Harry cry out and - 

But James' opportunity was cut short as Harry came, taking James completely by surprise and choking him with hot pulses of come. James pulled off Harry's cock, coughing and spluttering, feeling his face go red.

"Dad, I'm sorry! I..." 

"No, no, Harry, it's... fine," James rasped, laying a reassuring hand on Harry's thigh. That was _it_? A tiny moan the only indication of pleasure before he came? James would have to do far more to pull a reaction from his son, and the prospect frightened him. 

Harry just _looked_ at him, blank again, and James' mind flashed on an image of throwing him over the back of the couch and just fucking him, dry, wresting cries of pain, pleasure, _anything_ from his throat. James choked on his saliva, reviling the urge that was just so _wrong_.

James jumped up, hastily tucking himself back into his pajama bottoms. "Dinner is in two hours, son. I'm going to go prepare. Dinner. Yes."

He left Harry sitting on the couch with that same blank expression, spent prick jerking intermittently against his thigh the only indication of what they'd just done.

//////////////////////

The next day, Easter Sunday, James avoided his son as much as one can do as a single parent living in a small house. Harry spent most of his morning and early afternoon in his room while James made dinner. That, too, was a meal characterised by avoidance. James avoided looking at Harry and talking about anything but trivialities like the weather. He avoided thinking about how sweet his son's cock tasted in his mouth, how he wanted to make him moan, cry and spend himself down James' throat.

Oh! And Harry just looked so... debauchable, slowly chewing his food and peering at James with an unreadable expression. Guilt coursed through James' body at the recollection of what he'd done, how he'd _sucked off_ his son. And if Harry didn't get away from him now, he'd do more. Just one more day and he was back to Hogwarts until the end of term. The first thing James planned on doing Monday night was go to one of his spots so he could have a boy. To save his sanity, he'd find a blond, to be sure there was no comparing him to Harry, save an almost virginal, tight arse.

Dinner ended and James told Harry he'd do the washing up. With any luck, Harry would simply remain in his room all night.

Which he did. But he also left the door open. 

An hour later, James hovered by the door frame of Harry's bedroom, listening to the sound of Harry's wanking. The little sod, he _had_ to know the door was open, that James could hear. Could even see, if he wanted to. But he didn't. He kept out of sight.

The sounds continued to taunt him, and he stood, transfixed, against the wall by Harry's bedroom. The hitch of his breath, the squelching noise his fist made as it moved rhythmically over his cock... it was intoxicating. And then it stopped. James listened keenly, as the sounds turned to those of rustling sheets and the heavy sounds of Harry moving about. Was he done? James hadn't heard him come... Moving as quietly as he could, James crept forward, craning his neck around the door frame. 

Oh no. Oh no no no. Harry was _fingering himself_. He'd been fighting it before, but now James was hard. And desperate. And _wanting_.

Harry lay on his back, knees up and spread, one hand holding his cock and balls up against his stomach, the other placed lower, rubbing gently against his opening. His hole glistened with lube and Harry prodded two fingers against his arsehole. Features screwed up in concentration, he tried unsuccessfully to manoeuvre his fingers inside. James was caught between shock and fascination that he was going for two right off the bat. Unless he'd done this before?...

But it didn't seem so, as Harry struggled to penetrate himself. He grunted, twisting his body, trying to get the slick digits inside.

"Bloody buggering fuck!" he exclaimed angrily, and James blushed guiltily – he'd accidentally taught him that gem at the tender young age of seven, when a sloppily applied Severing Charm had landed James with a gash through his calf. 

James watched as Harry stabbed aggressively at his hole with his bunched up fingers and then grimaced – but did not cry out - as they pushed through. Jesus fuck, ouch. Flinching at the pain James was sure Harry was feeling, James made the decision to step in – he couldn't let his son experiment blindly, possibly injuring himself in the process. He stepped into the door frame and knocked lightly on the wall, affecting the appropriate guilty look. But Harry looked up and just beamed, taking James completely by surprise.

"Dad! Hi!" Harry chirped, abnormally cheery for a boy caught masturbating by his father and especially abnormal for his normally stoic, sociopathic son.

"Harry," James returned quietly, approaching Harry but keeping his eyes carefully averted from where his hands lingered on his cock, balls and arse.

"I'm so glad you're here." 

"Really?" 

"Help me?" Harry looked at him imploringly and James suddenly got the feeling he'd been set up. Open door, wanking noises...

"Harry..." he began, warningly, but Harry wasn't phased. 

"Yesterday made me want to... but I don't know _how_. I need to know, for later..."

"Read a book, Harry," James tried firmly.

"I have! That's what I did this morning." Harry pointed to the floor and James could see a neat stack of books and – fucking hell, his gay porn mags – sat next to Harry's bed. "I need you to show me..."

James allowed the enormity of the situation to wash over him, considering his and Harry's relationship, Harry's... _special circumstances_ and, particularly, his cock, which _throbbed_ in James' trousers, screaming at him to _fuck something._

 _Fuck Harry_.

He knew he was going to give in. A part of him rationalised the whole thing, saying that, hey – considering he'd already taught Harry had to stalk and kill people, fucking him up the arse could hardly screw him up any further. And Harry was sixteen, nearly seventeen – certainly old enough to make his own decisions? (James ignored the part that said _'you fucking moron, no!'_ )

He nodded, just barely, but Harry got the message, lips curling slightly upwards, his standard implication of pleasure. Now James would try to surpass that, draw a grin out of him, and hopefully several cries of pleasure. 

James made haste tearing off his clothes as Harry scooted back on the bed, lounging so James could just see his arsehole, still glistening from the lube. Fuck, he needed to be inside him now, but no – couldn't move too fast. James took several deep breaths, stymying his arousal, as he discarded the last of his clothes. Fully naked, he moved up onto the bed and over Harry, bracing himself over his body and just peering down at him. Harry's expression remained passive, though his cock twitched against James', indicating better than Harry could otherwise that he was ready.

James hesitated. What did he do now? Just push inside him? Talk to him? Kiss him? Should he treat him like a lover or just like an anonymous fuck? Well, he reasoned, the _theoretical_ point of the exercise was to show Harry how to act during sex, right? Like a lover, then. 

Angling down, James ran tentative fingers over Harry's jaw, then followed them with several light kisses to his jaw and neck. His hand he moved down to Harry's thigh, massaging the underside whilst pushing the leg back and up, until it rested on James' side. Harry took the hint and did the same with the other leg, shifting such that James' cock rubbed against his balls and perineum, causing James to moan against the corner of Harry's mouth. Harry turned his head toward James' and kissed him, open mouthed, whimpering just slightly as their tongues met, the sound spurring James on.

James went to grab his cock so he could rub it against Harry, maybe finger him a bit, and – Jesus fuck the eager bastard – met Harry's hand there, as it grabbed crudely at the shaft and jabbed it in the direction of his hole.

"Mmmpf, Harry, slow down!" James scolded.

"Why?"

"Generally people like a bit of foreplay."

"Not in your magazines."

"That's porn, not real life."

"I don't care – I want you to put it in me. Want to know what it feels like." He bit his lip – what he _nervous_? Harry didn't get nervous... "Want to know if I can. Feel." Something inside of James melted at that and he responded by kissing Harry again, full-on, no longer holding back because he was his father, but handling him like a real lover. And if Harry wanted to feel... James would give him that, and make this last as long as possible, while he was at it. Because he couldn't do this again without breaking. You could only cross the line so many times before going out of your mind. And James had to be the sane one. All things being relative.

James pulled away from Harry, pleased to hear a sound of protest from the back of his son's throat. Letting him know that he wasn't mad, or leaving, James kissed his way down Harry's body, sucking on his nipples, swirling his tongue in his bellybutton, ghosting hot breath of his cock. But ultimately he bypassed Harry's prick, lifting his cock and balls with one hand so he could rub the thumb of his other hand around his hole. Harry squirmed above him, lifting his hips up to give James better access. 

"Dad it feels..." Harry started, stopping suddenly. "I need more," he managed eventually. James felt Harry shift, trying to get his finger further in. 

"Dad _please_ ," Harry asked and there it was again, his insides liquifying.

"Get on all fours," James directed.

"Okay," mumbled Harry. He was up on all fours, arse swaying tantilisingly in front of James before James could reposition himself sitting back on his knees behind him. Harry was so eager...

James shifted forward, parting the cheeks of Harry's arse with both hands. He swirled a thumb in slow circles along the pink flesh until he reached the furl of Harry's arsehole and gently pressed in, just so. Harry's breath hitched as James continued to massage the tight muscle, still an angry red from Harry's earlier two-fingered assault. Wanting to soothe it, show Harry that, yes, he could feel (God, James hoped he was normal in this one respect), James leaned forward and kissed Harry's opening, tonguing lightly at the wrinkled flesh when a happy sigh from Harry told him everything was okay. James alternated between swirling his tongue just around his hole and sucking lightly whilst pushing just the tip of his tongue inside. Harry moaned, like he had just before he came in James' mouth.

James drew back to spit a glob of saliva on Harry's hole. Crude, but necessary, as the lube Harry'd been using tasted vile and saliva tended to be the best way to go with a rim job. James had always hated the sound of spit hitting someone's arse, but the way it made Harry gasp when he did it... it was base, animalistic and _sexy_. He went back to the same motion as before – swirling, flicking and sucking, loosening Harry up as much a possible to make way for his fingers. And then Harry _moaned_ :

"Feels... ugh. More Dad. Your tongue... please."

_Melting._

So James tightened his grip on Harry's arse, prying his cheeks apart as far he could, so the next time he moved in with his tongue, there was just enough give for him to spear the tip inside a few centimeters, and then further, past the initial ring of muscle, into his arse. And he cried out, "Oh!", and James' heart fluttered. Tongue-fucking him in earnest, James pulled Harry's arse tight against his face on every in-stroke, straining to reach further inside him, make him feel good. James found himself rubbing his own prick between his stomach and thighs as he bobbed backwards and forwards, which reminded him of Harry's cock. 

Harry definitely couldn't be normal, because he hadn't seemed to have even thought about touching himself. James temporarily retreated, panting at Harry, "Lean forward on one hand and use the other to wank yourself." Following his instructions, Harry shifted himself down and James went back to reaming him with his tongue. He knew the moment Harry took himself in hand because he felt his entire body jerk, almost breaking James' nose in the process. Not reaching quite as far inside Harry with his tongue as he'd have liked, James reconfigured himself slightly, popping his index finger in his mouth to wet it, and moving it inside Harry. He continued to tongue at his opening, manoeuvring around his finger, which he wriggled inside until he found that little nub...

"Ah, fuck!" cried Harry and James nearly came at the sound of it.

"What the...? Uh. I... Dad?" Harry gibbered above him.

"Your prostate," he informed him, flicking the tip of his finger against the spot in rapid succession. "Also known as the magic button." A high-pitched whine was all he heard in return. God, James wanted to see his face. His eyes. He wanted to fuck him, on his back, and watch him as he came. Time to move on, definitely.

"Okay, turn over Harry," ordered James. Harry began to protest, but James silenced him with a reassurance. "Don't worry, I'll touch it again." The next time, however, it would be with his cock.

They shifted back into their earlier position, this time with Harry's legs bent back and resting on James' shoulders. This would make for better prostate stimulation, which clearly was going to be the way to James' goal to make Harry come undone. Thankfully Quidditch had made Harry lithe and very flexible, and he didn't even grimace at the contortion. Or maybe he didn't grimace because he was immoveable, blank Harry. 

His expression was anything but blank as James grabbed hold of his cock and simply pushed, hard, against Harry's hole. He made a heavy choking sound and his eyes _sparked_ , definitely not with pain. With... pleasant surprise. And lust. Definitely lust. Without preamble, James began thrusting, knowing instinctively that Harry could take it, virgin or no. He responded immediately, grasping James' shoulder blades with both hands, sharp nails driving into the muscled flesh and throwing his head back, neck straining. James indulged himself as he hadn't the day before, sucking on Harry's Adam's apple as he drove into his body in hard rhythm. 

Harry was _so fucking tight_ , the tightest arse James had ever had, and that included several rentboys James had taken pleasure in – and paid greatly to – break in. Seeming to glob on rather quickly to the mechanics, Harry clenched his arses muscles around James' cock, nearly causing him to come too quickly. Realising this could all end too soon before he reached his goal, James bent Harry back _just_ that bit further until he was sure his cock was hitting his prostate on every inward stroke. He slid his hand between their stomachs and took hold of Harry's cock, gripping it tightly and moving it in rhythm with their fucking. Then he just watched, eyes fixed on Harry's face, waiting.

Harry was breathing heavily, the kind of full-body pants that stirred his entire torso every time he exhaled. Sweat trickled from his brow and red patches bloomed over his pale skin. James allowed himself a momentary break from his vigil, leaning down to lick the sweat from Harry's cheek, a broad swipe from jaw to temple. As he drew back and locked onto Harry's eyes, he decided to take up a slightly more brutal tempo – Harry was exhibiting more emotion than James thought he'd ever seen, but it still wasn't nearly enough. He braced himself, hard, on his remaining arm and jack-hammered his cock in and out of Harry's body, tightening the grip on his cock.

"Uggnnnhhhh!" cried Harry, as if in _anguish_ , and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and dug his fingernails into James' back. Then he did something entirely unexpected. He brought on hand up, grabbed James by the back of the head and pulled him down into a hot, wet kiss. After that it all happened so fast, James barely had the presence of mind to enjoy it. He felt Harry spurt wetly against his fist, his arse clenching wildly about James' cock, and the scream that James had been craving so badly, was swallowed up by their mouths, moving desperately against one another. Almost at the same time, or after, or maybe even before, James came, deep within Harry's body, his orgasm fogging his senses and, ultimately, his recollection of things afterwards. All he could feel or remember after the fact was _ohfuckohfucksogoodohfuckHARRY!_.

That and the way Harry looked after, as they lay sweaty and heavy against one another. He smiled, and James was pretty sure he wasn't faking it. He felt something genuine.

//////////////////////

They always call Harry in to the most brutal murders. While he knows that they know he enjoys it, he knows they have no idea why, or how much. Most people think he went a bit funny after he killed Voldemort, but only he and James know the truth. Well, just him now. His father had died in the war – fucking Bellatrix Lestrange (Harry killed her, after, in the same place he and his father used to hunt. He'd made it last _hours_ and had enjoyed every scream, every cut into her body and, eventually, every tear) – so now Harry was the only one who knew what he was. 

A killer.

But a "good" killer.

Harry knows he's a better person, with a more firm sense of morals and _right and good_ than most people. It's kind of fucked up, he knows – he's now spent enough time living amongst the "normal" to understand just how much of an anomaly he is – but he kind of likes it. It's like a secret he shares with James, a private joke only they get. That James is dead now doesn't matter. Well, not really.

Harry thinks that if he could love one person, he'd like it to be James. Incidentally, he doesn't love anybody. Not that he's aware of – the way that everyone else feels love, Harry can't relate to at all. He knows that it hurt, in a weird, niggling kind of way when James died. And that he feels... something whenever he thinks about him. But he doesn't think its love, the "normal" way.

He can fake it, though. He pretends mostly with Ginny Weasley, his on-again-off-again girlfriend, but sometimes with Zacharias Smith, with whom he occasionally works cases. He moans and cries out, says "oh, yes, fuck me, fuck me" or "yes, baby, so fucking tight" and screws up his face affecting passion, but it's never the way it was _that time_. Never anything close to it. 

Still, James taught him well. He's "eccentric." "Morbid." "A bit fucked up." But not "crazy." Or "psycho." Or "a monster." He learned by rote the way to behave so he could interact normally. He lives by the code passed on to him by his father, James' Code, he called it. He pretends to be like everyone else, and he only kills people who deserve it. He's made over a hundred kills in the last ten years, and no one's the wiser. 

Harry smiles to himself, and goes back to the bloody scene. He has someone else's work to critique (sloppy and unsophisticated; he reckons he'll be an easy catch) and tonight, he has a date with a paedophile. No one will find the body, of course. Ten years of practise have made him neat, efficient - and this one's a Muggle anyway. Muggle police will hardly go looking for – or successfully find – two dozen neatly chopped up body parts transfigured into every day items and discarded in a landfill. After all, the Aurors hadn't found any of them, either. Not that they ever _questioned_ the strange disappearances of the sort Harry took care of. They were almost never missed. The Code, after all, is flawless.

His father's Code. James' Code.

James taught Harry everything he knows. _Everything_.

_End_


End file.
